


We were always gonna be forever

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Digimon OTP Week 2017 [5]
Category: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: Taichi seems willing to risk his life for the weirdest thing.





	We were always gonna be forever

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I wanted to do something a lot longer with much more exploration of the emotional impact of the apocalypse and all but alas, real life called and I'm late on my original program so here, have this instead :P

 

“Crap!” Taichi swears once they’ve left the zombies behind them and shoved themselves into an empty alley, “we need to go back!”

 

He’s patting at the pockets of his ill-fitting cargo shorts, hands growing more restless with each useless pat, and Yamato’s throat constricts in apprehension.

 

“Did you lose you Digivice?”

 

There’s nothing else Yamato would ever consider going back to a compromised zone for, but for this...he’d walk in more dangerous situations than that for a Digivice, no matter whose. There’s the sentimental value, of course—that alone would be enough to make him risk a lot of things—but also these things haven’t even begun to lose power after sixteen years of extended use without battery change. They’re the only way they have to help their partners evolve, act as distress signal, maps and, with a little mastery of the Morse code, communication devices.

They’ve gotten Yamato and the others out of more than one delicate situation, allowed them to rescue Mr. Inoue and Mr. Kido out of a horde of corpses, and generally greatly contributed to their camp’s safety.

Sentiments aside, the Digivices are just too essential to lose.

 

“Who do you take me for?” Taichi hisses with a look of indignation to make a shier man cower, “Of course I didn’t lose my Digivice!”

“Then what are you making a fuss for? We’re not going back there.”

“But we’ve got to!”

 

Taichi’s face looks pleading, twisted with distress at the idea of leaving whatever it is behind, but Yamato refuses to be budged. There are at least fifteen corpses in this grocery store. They’re both black and brown with grime and blood as it is, breathings short and heartbeats fast after escaping by the skin of their teeth. Even assuming they survive a second run, which is a big assumption already, getting this late would mean skipping on their pharmacy run and risking being stranded at night anyway.

There’s no way Yamato is going to let either of them go back there, especially with Weregarurumon and Greymon stuck at camp to help with the repairs.

 

“Taichi,” Yamato insists, hoping it’ll be the end of it, “we’re leaving.”

“No!”

 

They wince at the same time when Taichi’s voice echoes against the buildings on either side of them, the tone of his despair lingering against neatly parked but abandoned cars. It only takes a glance for them to move out of the alleyway, one rattling corpse already moving toward them, and Yamato doesn’t bother repressing a sigh of relief when Taichi moves away from the grocery store and toward the old commercial center their community chose as a base of operation.

They jog rather than run, keeping their strength even as they put some distance between them and danger, slipping into practiced synchronization without needing to think about it. Their hands find each other as they run, the comfort of a familiar gesture easing the knot of fear in Yamato’s guts.

 

Even through the end of the world, they still have each other, if nothing else.

 

“We really—” Taichi has to pause so he can gulp more air, sweat drawing lines in the dirt on his forehead before he can finish: “We need to go back. I’ve got to—”

“You’ve got to let go,” Yamato interrupts, waiting until he’s done hissing to breathe in, “I’ll knock you out and put you on my back if I have to but there’s literally nothing in the world I’d be willing to let you risk your life for!”

“But it’s for you!”

 

Yamato’s too stunned to reply immediately, and the long, plaintive sound of a dying animal punctuates the silence that follows, Taichi’s harsh breathing too loud between them as he tries to get it back to normal. In his chest, Yamato’s heart feels like it’s holding its breath, making itself tiny to leave Yamato’s brain enough space to process the declaration.

 

“What do you mean, ‘it’s for me’? What was it?”

 

The emotions warring over Taichi’s face are so intense it’s almost like watching a movie in stop motion. Anguish, fear, crimson embarrassment flicker over his features in rapid succession, then something like intense resignation and a deep breath for courage before he says:

 

“It’s a ring.”

 

Well. You have to give it to Taichi: he neither stuttered, nor muttered.

 

Yamato’s brain, on the other hand….

 

“A what?”

“A ring,” Taichi repeats, face still redder than Koushiro’s hair but head held high, “with your crest on it. Had it custom made and everything.”

 

There’s Yamato’s what on the what now?

 

_What?_

 

“Why would you even buy me a ring?”

 

Taichi shrugs, like he’s fully accepted that this is the moment he dies—whether he thinks the cause will be embarrassment or Yamato is still unclear—before he gives a rueful little smile and asks:

 

“What do people usually buy rings for?”

 

Oh, okay! There’s something wrong with Yamato’s ears.

 

Or his brain.

 

Or maybe the past three months were nothing but a massive set of nightmares, and this is the part where something so weird happens that Yamato wakes up.

 

“Were you gonna—”

“Yes.”

“Are you—”

“You know me,” Taichi challenges, the red slowly going out of his cheeks, “you tell me if I’m serious.”

 

Yamato would answer that, he really would! It’s just that his brain doesn’t quite remember how to make his mouth work.

Of course Taichi wouldn’t joke around about proposing, especially not with Yamato. The guy knows what his issues are, how uptight he can be on making words match the exact and real nature of a relationship. Taichi wouldn’t just step all over that with a joke on that topic.

Somehow though, knowing that doesn’t help.

 

Today should have been an ordinary day, okay? Run into an abandoned store, take what they can carry to help the group survive, run back, try not to get eaten. Rinse and repeat as long as it’s necessary. Instead Yamato is stuck in place in a part of town they’ve got no business in, feeling like a certain bushy-haired someone just drop-kicked him into the Twilight Zone.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Yamato got to the ground, somehow. He can feel the cold of it seeping into his ass, the harsh solidity of a wall with peeling paint at his back. Taichi, crouched down to put their eyes at the same level, has a hand on his shoulder, partly for comfort and partly as a way to keep himself upright.

There’s really no proper answer to that question.

 

Well. Yamato could go for the familiar route and swear until the static’s gone from his brain. Or, you know, just ask what the fuck is wrong with Taichi.

There’s so much vulnerability in Taichi’s eyes though, an incertitude he rarely ever unveils in front of anyone, Yamato can’t bring himself to do that. Taichi has been the most important person in his life for over sixteen years now, after all, so Yamato knows exactly how much of a gift this level of emotional openness is.

 

Still….

 

“We’re not even dating!”

 

Yamato’s voice pierces at his own ears, too high and strangled to be fully intelligible, but Taichi must get it because he winces, the ‘yeaaaaah, about that….’ written all over the tight tilt of his mouth. At least Yamato isn’t the only one freaking out here.

 

“I know, it’s stupid,” Taichi apologizes at last, hand moving away from Yamato’s shoulder, “let’s just forget it.”

“Wha—oh no you don’t!”

 

It’s easy to snatch Taichi’s wrist out of the air and hold it tight, a lifeline as much as a shackle destined to keep him right where he is. It’s an old dynamic between them, this tug of war between their respective brands of emotional constipation and their mutual desire to know what goes on in the other’s head.

It makes it easy to give Taichi a hard stare and warn in a low voice:

 

“You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and walk away! Start explaining, Yagami.”

 

Taichi rolls his eyes at that, but his shoulders unwind a little and, to Yamato’s relief, there’s a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.

 

“Remember when we had dinner with the Russian ambassador?”

“Uh, duh?”

 

To be fair, it’s Yamato who offered to come along. Taichi was nervous about misstepping or appearing too conciliatory or weak, and since Yamato lived in Russia for a year, he figured a little bit of a cultural bridge couldn’t hurt. It’s not like he minded people thinking he was Taichi’s boyfriend, anyway, so they marked him as a plus one.

Four hours of painfully awkward attempts at politely casual conversation later, Yamato was about ready to strangle Taichi right then and there if it meant getting out. Also they heard the news about the very first case of Zombie sickness that evening, but it wouldn’t be relevant until the real outbreak three months later.

Anyway. Yes, Yamato does remember.

 

“You were perfect,” Taichi smiles, as impervious to Yamato’s sarcasm as he ever was, “I swear I’ve heard about you being a delicious person enough times after that night to last me a lifetime. Your behavior was impeccable through and through.”

“What else was I gonna do? Tap dance on the table?”

 

Taichi blinks, then snorts at the remark, laughing for longer than the joke truly warrants, but it’s not like Yamato’s about to complain. It’s always been easy for him to make Taichi laugh, but it never got any less rewarding.

 

“There’s my favorite asshole!” Taichi wheezes after the worst of his laughter has passed, “I missed that.”

“I never stopped—”

“No, I mean...during the meal. At the embassy. Everyone was so charmed and fascinated and I kept thinking it wasn’t you. I wished you’d say something kind of offensive or start making sarcastic quips or whatever. I couldn’t wait until we went home and we’d spend an hour bitching about how ridiculous the thing was.”

 

The way Taichi’s expression goes from amused to wistful, eyes never leaving Yamato’s before he starts his next sentence is so fascinating, Yamato couldn’t look away even if he tried.

 

“It took a while before I remembered ‘home’ didn’t mean the same place for both of us.”

 

Yamato remembers that, too. Not the ‘home’ thing, but he remembers looking at Taichi somewhere just before dessert, hoping for comfort and finding him lost in thought instead; melancholy etched in every inch of his face as he looked down at his hands.

At least now he knows what brought that on.

 

His voice is gentler than normal when he asks:

 

“So you decided proposing was the way to go?”

“To be fair,” Taichi says with a small smile and a helpless shrug, “I did consider offering we shared a flat first, or at least asking you out.”

“Good to know you remember what normal people do.”

 

Yamato makes sure to squeeze at Taichi’s wrist as he says it, relieved when Taichi’s eyes drift skyward in answer.

 

“Yes,” he says with the obnoxious patience of one trying to explain something really simple to someone who’s being unusually slow, “I do remember. But I thought about it and I figured...we’re past dating now, aren’t we? I mean. Maybe I’m wrong but...going to restaurants and sitting there like awkward idiots while we ask each other surface-level questions? Really? You already know what I’m looking for in a relationship. I know the things you hate. I know about your messed up brain, and the things that make you cry and everything. So I just—dating’s temporary, you know? And I guess I just…I wanted us to be forever.”

“We were always going to be forever, you idiot.”

 

Taichi’s mouth goes slack at that, and Yamato snorts as the flush returns to his friend’s cheeks, moisture shining at the corner of his eyes. Taichi wasn’t wrong, with his little speech: they do know each other better than anyone.

They’ve known each other for seventeen years, have been facing death for just as long. They know each other’s ticks and quirks, like how Taichi knows what angles to use to get Yamato to budge out of a position his stubbornness would normally keep him into, or how acutely aware Yamato is that he can leave Taichi gutted with a well-timed bout of emotional straightforwardness.

 

It’s just as well they care about each other too much to make careless use of that knowledge.

 

“I’ve known that since we first got Omegamon.”

 

In his more emotional moments, Yamato almost feels like he got his first inkling of it when he realized he could trust Taichi with taking care of Takeru. It wasn’t even a judgment of Taichi’s ability to care for a child, really, more of a statement of Yamato’s ability to trust anyone other than himself.

He’s learned to trust other people since, of course. At least twenty-four of them. It’s just not the same, though. Building Omegamon isn’t like in the fantasy books, where the protagonists get cut open and someone else’s heart is shoved next to their souls, but it does require the knowledge that, should this kind of things happen, it’d be okay.

 

Yamato would never want what he feels to brush Takeru so closely, for many reasons he couldn’t name if his life depended on it, but with Taichi...yeah. He thinks he could deal with that kind of thing if it was with him.

 

He’s not sure how to convey that exactly but, lucky for him, he doesn’t have to. Taichi...he’s not always the most emotionally perceptive person in the world, but he gets Yamato in a way no one else does, and they rarely ever have trouble communicating.

Being able to put what he’s feeling in a simple squeeze of his fingers and know he’s been heard is one of the many perks of that.

 

“So,” Taichi says after a long, pregnant but somehow comfortable silence, “not that I want to ruin the moment or anything but, with regard to what I said….”

 

On impulse, Yamato leans forward to plant a kiss on Taichi’s cheek, warmth curling in his belly before the words are even out of his mouth.

 

“I’m sure someone will agree to perform some kind of ceremony.”

 

Technically, same sex marriages aren’t legal in Japan yet but hey, it’s the zombie apocalypse, and they’ve saved the world three times already.

 

The law can suck it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and reviews make me want to keep writing <3


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